Can Sanford's negatives get any worse?

2/1/13 6:38 PM EST

With Mark Sanford in contention to win a crowded GOP primary for his old House seat, South Carolina’s FITSNews writes that the scandal-tarred former governor’s fate could be contingent on a few key questions:

Among them:

[H]ow much higher can his negatives be driven? In other words do people already know everything there is to loathe about him – rendering future negative attacks less effective than they otherwise might be?

It’s an obvious question to ask about a candidate, though Sanford's case is so unique that the answer isn’t quite clear.

Between Sanford’s rambling, nationally televised 2009 press conference, the international publicity that surrounded his extramarital affair and his unflattering characterization in ex-wife Jenny Sanford’s subsequent book, it’s hard to imagine there’s much negative material left for opponents to work with. His career unravelled in the most public way imaginable, on newspaper front pages and on television and computer screens in South Carolina and across the globe – what more can be said? How much more damage can be done?

In almost any other era, his political condition would have been terminal. But in this one, where the traditional rules of conduct for pols are being rewritten and the public has proved more forgiving of personal indiscretions than in the past, he might have already weathered the storm.